Chuck is the author of the published novels: Blackbirds, Mockingbird, Under the Empyrean Sky, Blue Blazes, Double Dead, Bait Dog,Dinocalypse Now, Beyond Dinocalypse and Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits. He also the author of the soon-to-be-published novels: The Cormorant, Blightborn (Heartland Book #2), Heartland Book #3, Dinocalypse Forever, Frack You, and The Hellsblood Bride. Also coming soon is his compilation book of writing advice from this very blog: The Kick-Ass Writer, coming from Writers Digest.

He, along with writing partner Lance Weiler, is an alum of the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab (2010). Their short film, Pandemic, showed at the Sundance Film Festival 2011, and their feature film HiM is in development with producers Ted Hope and Anne Carey. Together they co-wrote the digital transmedia drama Collapsus, which was nominated for an International Digital Emmy and a Games 4 Change award.

Chuck has contributed over two million words to the game industry, and was the developer of the popular Hunter: The Vigil game line (White Wolf Game Studios / CCP). He was a frequent contributor to The Escapist, writing about games and pop culture.

Much of his writing advice has been collected in various writing- and storytelling-related e-books.

He currently lives in the forests of Pennsyltucky with wife, two dogs, and tiny human.

He is likely drunk and untrustworthy. This blog is NSFW and probably NSFL.

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Chuck Wendig is a novelist, screenwriter, and game designer. This is his blog. He talks a lot about writing. And food. And pop culture. And his kid. He uses lots of naughty language. NSFW. Probably NSFL. Be advised.

Flash Fiction Challenge: It’s X Meets Y, The Horror Edition!

It’s that time again for the challenge I love so much —

You take two pre-existing pop culture properties, randomly mash them up, and then write a piece of fiction inspired by and utilizing that mash-up. You’re not writing fan-fiction in those worlds — you’re capturing the essence of them for a new story. (So it’s like, when you pitch an original novel to an editor and you say, IT’S LIKE DANCES WITH WOLVES MEETS BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. And they’re like, what? And then you both laugh uncomfortably.)

I would have been happy with a prom being set on fire but with this story I gets lots of extra helpings of fires and explosions which keeps me more than happy. Hopefully Everardus enjoys his new home… A great romp and an impressive amount of world building compressed into less than 5000 words.

I would have been happy with a prom being set on fire but with this story I gets lots of extra helpings of fires and explosions which keeps me more than happy. Hopefully Everardus enjoys his new home… A great romp and an impressive amount of world building compressed into less than 5000 words.

That was great! Tough combination to pull off which you did really well. A deftly spun story with well crafted characters that engaged me from beginning to end. Loved the vivid descriptions. I’m going to remember the phrase, ‘limp windsails’ for a while. 🙂

Reading your intro it seems like you weren’t very confident about the story. Writers get enough rejection in their lives without beating themselves up as well so try not to be so hard on yourself. 🙂 I think you developed a fully realized world and I was intrigued by Bean and how he’s learned to cope (or not cope) in a world full of zombies. I like the idea of music being a way to scare off zombies. I’m a rabid (ha ha) Walking Dead fan so I definitely would have liked to see more gore but writing vivid descriptions of viscera is definitely not for everyone. I think you have some ideas in the story that you can expand into a YA novella or even a novel.

I don’t envy anyone that has to write a flash fiction with a pairing of those two particular franchises, ha ha. I’m hoping your slight dig at vampires in the story is also a shout-out about Fifty Shades original incarnation as a Twilight fic. Poor Sarah. At least she died – ahem – happy.

I sort of muffed the horror part of this. I’m not much of a horror person. So though this story might be Frankenstein meets the Muppet Show, I think I came down a bit more on the Muppet side. Or maybe it was my headache meds. In any case:

Well, the Warden in this story is definitely several rungs below merely cooking the books. He definitely got what he deserved in the true spirit of the Frankenstein story. The ending of the story was bittersweet for Victor (or at least that’s how I interpreted it) and I do like a less than tidy ending. 🙂

I was hoping Chloe would take off her Manolo Blahniks (or her Jimmy Choos) and smash the mirror and her laptop (while screaming in terror) because I think that would have been characteristic of Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. Having said that, I did like how she (without giving anything away in the comments), terminated her friendship with the rest of the gang. And there’s something truly scary about Scrivener being hijacked… 🙂

I really enjoyed this writing challenge. Here is my setup. I went with The Exorcist and The Marvel Universe (X-Men). My first draft of the story ran just shy of 8000 words due to me spending the first half writing about the setting. I cut the story down about 2000 words, unfortunately, 1000 words over the assignment criteria. I didn’t get a chance to doing any edits as I wanted to post the story by the deadline (I’m posting at 11:40 pm on October 30, 2015). Here is a rough draft of my story: